This article is intended as a complete guide to email marketing, both for beginners and experts, where you will find everything you need to know to get great results with this important marketing tool.
Every year, email marketing confirms that this channel brings results: it has an average ROI four times higher than any other channel.
In fact, all companies benefit from its efficiency, especially e-commerce.
Evaluating the use of email marketing in your strategy is essential for every type of business. Whether you are a store, a large company or an association, through this tool you can collect information about your customers and reach them effectively.
There are several valid digital tools that simplify your life, such as Mailchimp, MailUp, Sendinblue... In this short guide we will not analyze the characteristics of each one in detail, as we assure you that the big players allow you to do everything you need to create successful campaigns.
So let's get started!
Contact Management
Most email marketing tools allow you to import contacts by uploading from a file (Excel, txt or csv) or by copying and pasting.
When importing, it is important to include all the parameters to be mapped, therefore the information we have about the users, so as to allow us to target the lists.
This procedure can often also be done with an automatic synchronization with external systems, such as an e-commerce, a website, a CRM or a CMS.
This integration happens between plugins or integration platforms like Zapier.
Good contact management helps in sending effective campaigns, strengthens customer relationships and improves deliverability.
The first step is to divide the contacts in your general database into lists , to target their characteristics according to your needs.
Active and inactive contacts
To have a good quality and efficient database, it is advisable to track the engaged and inactive contacts. This is the first and fundamental step to have an efficient email marketing strategy.
Engaged or active contacts are those who are interested in campaigns, therefore they open and click on them. These are the ones to focus on when sending newsletters, as they guarantee the success of the campaign and keep the deliverability rate high.
Blacklisted Contacts
Blacklisted contacts are those who have unsubscribed from the campaign's unsubscribe link, those who have reported your emails as spam (an action called a complaint), and hard bounces (i.e., those whose email address is invalid).
What to do with these contacts? Nothing, do not send subsequent campaigns (most systems do this automatically).
Segmentation and filters
The advanced segmentation tool allows you to target your lists to the max . Among your contacts you can filter attributes , such as the date added, last modified, or activities , such as readers and non-readers of a specific campaign.
These filters allow you to delve deeper into which contacts in your database are engaged or inactive, and then create dynamic lists to which you can send special promotions to reward their loyalty or to encourage contact.
Lead scoring
Always with a view to segmenting lists, a very useful tool is lead scoring, that is, assigning points to contacts based on their actions.
How does it work? Newsletter sending tools like Sendinblue allow you to assign a score to the user based on the actions they perform. An example: 5 points for those who opened the email, 5 points for those who clicked on a link inside and visited your site, 10 points for those who made a purchase.
Once you have established the number of points for your qualified contacts, you can take further actions. For example, you can add contacts to a specific list or send them a dedicated campaign.
Double Opt-In
Subscription to the newsletter must be regulated, in order to comply with the European GDPR regulation and increase deliverability, with the Double Opt-In procedure. This consists of a confirmation email of subscription. It is therefore recommended to create an email with the subject "Confirm your subscription to the newsletter" strictly informative and free from advertising (this point is also required by the GDPR) in which the subscription link is contained.
Create newsletter signup forms
The opt-in form is the backbone of email marketing, as it allows new leads to arrive and lists to grow.
Also in this form it is important that there is a tick for privacy as required by the GDPR.
The form is where you fill in the fields of information you want to collect. It is good practice to allow subscribers to choose how often they will receive your emails.
Profile update forms
If you want to get more information about your subscribers or give them the opportunity to manage their preferences, you should use a profile update form. This works similarly to the subscription form, but is displayed to each individual contact in a personalized way. Using this type of form allows you to learn more about your contacts by collecting more data.
Also in this module a useful option is to give contacts the possibility to choose the frequency with which they receive emails. Where is it recommended to insert this module? Via a link in the footer of the campaigns.
Unsubscribe forms
The unsubscribe link should always be included in every email.
You can also create a form to insert directly into your website.
It is important that after filling out the form, users are simply redirected to a confirmation page, where they can ask for the reasons.
Creating an Email Campaign
Regardless of the tool chosen for sending newsletters, each newsletter is
It consists of 4 fundamental parts:
Campaign Settings
the ideation of the email
the recipients
the sending.
Email subject and pre-header
The subject of the email and the preheader are the first things seen by those who receive it: it is therefore essential to pay maximum attention both to increase the opening rates and maintain a good deliverability. If you want to find out how to set them, read the following article: "Deliverability: how to increase the delivery rate of your newsletters".
The subject line determines whether your contacts decide to open your email - leave room for creativity; while the preview provides a summary of the context of your email and will determine whether the recipient is interested enough to open it.
Sender
As well as the subject and pre-header, the sender also plays a key role: it is essential to change the default one and personalize it, as it allows the recipient to quickly identify you . It must inspire trust to encourage them to open the email.
Email design and ideation
This step is crucial: it requires the most work but gives the most satisfaction!
Here are some tips on how to set up the body of your email:
Web version link or mirror link - Allows readers to open the email in a new page if they don't see it properly in their inbox. This is contained in the header-
Link to unsubscribe page : mandatory according to GDPR, usually placed in the footer.
Attachments : you can attach files, we recommend not exceeding 4 megabytes.
Images : images help and stimulate reading, although moderate use is recommended as if the email becomes too heavy it will be sent to spam.
Text: The heart of the campaign should be present at the beginning. Remember less is more!, instead of long texts it is better to use short teasers.
Buttons: The first rule is not to include too many. Many calls to action do not mean many clicks. Set the buttons intelligently and highlight them visually.
Personalization: There is no better feeling than receiving an email that seems to have been written for your needs. The key is therefore to personalize the fields such as the subject and the content.
Sending test email
It is very useful to send a test campaign before sending it to all recipients. This allows you to verify that the design of the email meets your expectations when opened by a real email client.
A/B testing
An A/B test or split test is a way to test two versions of a campaign with a portion of your contact list. This type of test allows you to present the winning version to the majority of your audience.
Campaign Programming
With most newsletter sending tools you can:
send now
schedule at a specific time
send at the best time , that is, through knowledge of the data, the tool itself determines when contacts are most likely to get involved-
Scenario Creation - Email Marketing Automation
Automations are personalized contact scenarios to better communicate with your customers or prospects. These consist of a series of targeted emails, based on the behavior of contacts. Scenarios can also be created based on behavioral data from your website.
Scenarios are therefore a series of actions, therefore sending messages, and conditions (such as timing and verification) linked to stages of the customer journey.
Creating a Welcome Scenario
Welcome emails have an average open rate of 50-80% and help retain subscribers from the start.
It is recommended to create automatic scenarios with the email automation tool, so that new subscribers receive the welcome email immediately (recommended within 1-3 minutes).
Other email marketing automation scenarios
In addition to the welcome scenario, you can create, for example:
birthday, anniversary, membership anniversary
resuming contact after inactivity
abandoned cart
funnel, that is, an analytical approach to all phases of your customers' purchasing journey (we use the Connection Funnel method, click here if you want to know more )
Report
Reports give you a bird's eye view of the performance of all your campaigns, including data such as open rates, clicks, and conversions.
A report allows you to have general information about the campaign such as subject, number of recipients, segmentation and sending date.
You can view other key elements such as read rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, read/click ratio and conversions.
Also interesting is the data about the performance of the first 24 hours, this way you can see how most of your recipients reacted to the email.
Key indicators to measure the success of an email campaign
Here's a quick rundown of key metrics for measuring email success:
Open rate : The percentage of recipients who opened an email divided by the number of emails delivered
Click-through rate : The percentage of recipients who clicked on an email divided by the number of emails delivered.
Click-Through Rate or CTR : percentage of recipients who clicked on a link
Unsubscribe rate : percentage of recipients who have unsubscribed from your email list
Bounce rate : percentage of failed deliveries in relation to the total number of recipients.
According to an analysis by Sendinblue, here are some standard rates (source https://help.sendinblue.com/hc/it/articles/213406845-Come-realizzare-campagne-email-di-successo ) depending on the sector:
Divided by geographical areas, here is the data (source Email Marketing Industry Benchmark 2020)
Best practices in email marketing
Here are some tips to increase the performance of your email marketing campaigns.
Editorial plan
To be successful in email marketing it is extremely important to have an editorial plan , especially if you have a multi-channel approach.
An editorial plan is an organizational scheme to follow in publishing your content: it involves the blog, social profiles and the newsletter.
Lower bounce rate
Especially for companies that send promotional content, bounce rate is a big enemy. The bounce rate affects deliverability, so it is recommended to lower it by excluding inactive contacts.
Optimize sending time
If you always send your newsletters at the same time and on the same day... well this may not be the best time to maximize your open and click-through rates.
Mostly B2B contacts check their inbox during office hours, while B2C contacts check their inbox in the late afternoon or on weekends.
Surely the "send at the best time" features automatically calculate the perfect time to send your emails in order to get the best performance.
Be relevant and engaging
The more relevant your content is to readers, the more likely they are to open your email. Knowing your customers and their preferences is absolutely essential to keeping them interested. Segmenting your lists can help you do this.
Reduce unsubscription rate
Ask your contacts for feedback when they decide to unsubscribe. Maybe they like your content but your sending frequency is too high. In this case, include the possibility to express their preference.
In a nutshell:
Plan ahead and use wise timing (check out your competition too)
Keep your database clean and apply GDPR rules (unsubscribe and Double Opt-In). Your bounce rate will decrease.
Build a trusting and lasting relationship with your recipients through precise segmentation
Customize the sender and subject
Encourage your recipients with clear, well-formulated calls to action
Increase your open rate with a customized funnel
Find the best time to send your emails
Give your recipients the individual choice of frequency
Reward your most active recipients
Leverage automations to get maximum results with minimum effort.
If you have any questions or concerns you can ask them in our Facebook group dedicated to Marketing for Small and Medium Businesses
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